The Dunciad

The Dunciad is a landmark literary satire by Alexander Pope published in three different versions at different times. The first version (the "three book" Dunciad) was published in 1728. The second version, in which Pope confirmed his authorship of the work, appeared in the Dunciad Variorum in 1735. The New Dunciad, in four books and with a different hero, appeared in 1743. The poem celebrates the goddess Dulness and the progress of her chosen agents as they bring decay, imbecility, and tastelessness to the kingdom of Great Britain.

Book I, line 93. Compare: "As pleasing are thy verses to us, divine Poet, as sleep is to the wearied." (Tale tuum carmen nobis, divine poeta, / Quale sopor fessis.) Virgil, Eclogues, V, 45. Meant as a compliment in the original, but sometimes also used ironically in speaking of poets who give their readers sleep.

Next o'er his books his eyes begin to roll,
In pleasing memory of all he stole;
How here he sipp'd, how there he plunder'd snug,
And suck'd all o'er like an industrious bug.

Book I, line 127.

Or where the pictures for the page atone,
And Quarles is saved by beauties not his own.

Book I, line 139.

How index-learning turns no student pale,
Yet holds the eel of science by the tail.

Book I, line 279.

And gentle Dulness ever loves a joke.

Book II, line 34.

A brain of feathers, and a heart of lead.

Book II, line 44.

But blind to former, as to future Fate,
What mortal knows his pre-existent state?

Book III, line 165. Compare: "Revisit'st thus the glimpses of the moon, Making night hideous, and we fools of nature", William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act i, Scene 4.

Immortal Rich! how calm he sits at ease,
Midst snows of paper, and fierce hail of pease;
And proud his mistress' order to perform,
Rides in the whirlwind and directs the storm.

Book III, line 263, satirizing a contemporary theatre manager John Rich, as an "Angel of Dulness" and using lines derived from Joseph Addison's The Campaign (1704):

So when an angel by divine command
With rising tempests shakes a guilty land,
Such as of late o'er pale Britannia passed,
Calm and serene he drives the furious blast;
And, pleas'd th' Almighty's orders to perform,
Rides in the whirlwind, and directs the storm.

The word "passed" was here originally spelt "past" but modern renditions have updated the spelling for clarity.